Vail & Summit County

I saw at least two avalanches on east-facing, above treeline slopes. They likely ran last Wednesday or earlier that week. I thought I could see 1 or 2 others, but it was hard to say for sure.

Few clouds, temperatures in the 20s, winds moderate to strong above tree line.

Representative snow depths where I dug near and above treeline ranged from about 1 to 1.5 meters. There was about 30 to 50cm of recent snow from the two storms around Valentine's Day. The top 30cm was softer than a layer of denser, wind-packed snow about 10cm thick below it. On a southeast-facing slopes this denser layer was a thick crust. Closer to the ridge top, both layers were similarly dense. The weak layers of concern are softer faceted snow above and below the harder layer. While I didn't see any cracking or collapsing on my tour, and my Extended Column Tests didn't have any propagating results, recent avalanches on nearby above treeline east-facing slopes running on these weak layers suggest you can trigger slides. I got a very small, drifted slab to run on top of the harder layer on a test slope below the ridge. Below these layers was a series of harder and softer layers (crusts on the southerly-facing slopes) from late January and early February. None of these was reactive in tests, but slides might break down to these layers. The December 18 crusts was still easy to spot, but was in a thick layer of faceted snow and mostly decomposed at this point. Below treeline, the most recent snow was resting on a thin, faceted layer above a mostly faceted snowpack. There were no issues where I dug my snowpit on a sheltered northeast-facing slope. But on an open slope where the new snow froms more of a slab, you might trigger slide. The snowpack is still weak enough at lower elevations, any slide could gouge more deeply into the snowpack.